Loss of Innocence
by bubblegum-flavored icecream
Summary: I was impressed by the manga Elfen Lied. So I decided I'd write my own story about a diclonius named Yumi. This takes place after world war three, and dicloniuses are kept alive until they're 16 when they're fed to the humans. Yumi is very much like Nana


Yumi blinked once, twice, three times before it became possible for her to see something through the flow of blood that oozed like rivers of tears from her wounded eyes. It was blurry, but it was definitely there.

"Yumi? Yumi, can you hear me?" the voice sounded cold and collected as usual, a voice that Yumi loved hearing more than anything in the world.

The diclonius tried to speak, to do as much as whisper one simple word, but failed miserably. She raised her hand to her throat with great difficulty; her slender fingers found the skin of her neck: it was wet, soaked like a piece of cloth that had been left in a warm pool of water for a whole day before somebody had remembered it and fished it out. But of course, the warm liquid flowing from her throat was not water: it was blood, as usual. However, despite her wounded neck, Yumi found that she could move her head quite easily and settled for nodding weakly as a reply.

"Good. Now, I would like you to indicate the amount of pain you are feeling on this scale. Could you do that for me, Yumi?"

The man that was speaking held up a plastic scale for her to see; the scale was marked from one to one hundred. Yumi blinked once, feebly, then raised a shaky finger and pointed to the number fifty-seven on the scale. The man shrugged and waved the scale in her face. "Come on, Yumi, I know you're lying. Be honest."

Yumi blinked back tears. If she admitted how much pain she actually felt, she would deeply disappoint him and the others. That was something she could not face. Yet, the man had ordered Yumi to be honest, and Yumi had to obey. She held back a sob and raised a finger again. This time, she pointed at somewhere near eighty on the scale. The man nodded quietly. "Okay, good. You may rest now. The medics will come soon to attend you. The exam is over."

The man was walking away now. Yumi held him back by the arm. "Did I do well, Dr. Kurama?" she asked in one breath, her voice raspy and tainted by the taste of blood, making her throat itch and twitch, making her breathing difficult. Kurama remained silent for a short moment, then nodded again, solemnly, and replied: "You did excellent today."

Yumi felt a bubble of pride and joy appear in her heart. She had done well, excellent even, and Dr. Kurama seemed happy with her today!

The medics came into the room, dressed up in their usual blindingly white attires. They began stitching her up the best they could: first, they used white, cotton towels to stop her from hemorrhaging, then cleaned all her deep and minor injuries with soaked pieces of cloth before rubbing antiseptic into her burning flesh and stitching her deepest wounds. On her minor injuries, they stuck roughly made band-aids. Finally, when she was all covered up in towels, stitches, band-aids and half dry blood, they left her on the hard, steely and flat surface that was the closest thing to a bed that Yumi had ever had in her young life. The diclonius closed her eyes softly, a content smile spread widely on her innocent face. Sleepiness washed over her like a warm wave.

_Dr. Kurama and everybody…. I will do my best to satisfy your wishes, I promise_, she thought most ardently before finally falling asleep.

Yumi was woken up by two doctors whom she did not know, shoved into a sort of grey plastic bag and suspended to the ceiling, her back against the wall and a heavy metal helmet on her head that was way too big for her neck to support without pain. As usual the hours passed on without her having to do anything in particular, just feeling very stiff and uncomfortable, but of course she didn't say it, for it would disappoint everybody, especially Dr. Kurama. When she was a bit younger, Yumi had made a vow to herself that if she couldn't satisfy the humans, she would escape the laboratory and crush herself into powder with her own vectors. Her life purpose was to satisfy the humans, and on her sixteenth birthday, she would make the ultimate sacrifice for them. Yumi didn't know yet what the ultimate sacrifice was, because Dr. Kurama wouldn't tell her. She was a bit annoyed at that, and had for months been eaten away with curiosity, but at the end she had told herself that, as she satisfied the humans, the price of her sacrifice didn't matter.

Yumi had first known her other, destructive self when she was five. The voice had come whispering into her ear, mouthing and then shouting promises of happiness and glory in a world devoid of humans. Yumi had been a good girl. She had told the doctors about the Voice, and they had told her, in a rather panicked tone, that she mustn't listen to it because it was lying to her all the time. Yumi had ignored the voice, and gradually it had disappeared.

Yumi started feeling very uncomfortable, even more than usually, for some reason. She felt something was happening, something bad. Something really, really bad. Voices, not the Voice, but voices all the same began whispering in her head, and she knew she was hearing the voices of the other dicloniuses.

_It's our chance… It's our chance…_

_We must get out of here… Freedom…_

_Revenge… revenge._

_Filthy humans._

_REVENGE!_

Yumi widened her eyes under her helmet. _No… No!_

_It can't be…_

"No!"

In a heartbeat, Yumi tried desperately to free her vectors and fling them over to the humans to protect them, but as usual she was slow, much too slow. Much too slow…

BOOM!

With a sudden, nuclear-like explosion, the world went black. Yumi felt something hard fall onto her head, but fortunately she was protected by her heavy helmet. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer, fast and dangerously strongly. Cries of fear and pain were heard, then a complete silence.

Suddenly, Yumi sensed that the stiffness had disappeared and realized that her vectors were finally free. She waved them around a bit to test their ability. Good. They were as well as ever and hadn't been damaged by the explosion. Even though she was a good girl and didn't kill, Yumi liked having her vectors around, even if she knew she could not use them. It made her feel safe, and also less alone.

Yumi felt a sudden surge of panic. _Dr. Kurama! The doctors! _

The diclonius took off her helmet and gasped. Just before her, there was a huge gap in the floor, where the humans had stood. She jumped out of the plastic bag and walked over to the edge of the gap, careful not to fall off. She realized the hole went on for all the stories in the laboratory, right to the underground level, from where pale silhouettes were clearly visible, long and thin and almost trembling in their murderous glory. Vectors.

_If only she had been quicker…_


End file.
